This invention relates to a drier, and more particularly to a drum type drier.
A drum type drier generally comprises a housing and a drum rotatably set in the housing. Clothings placed in the drum are dried by hot air drawn into the drum. The conventional drum type drier has a hot air inlet provided substantially in the center of the backside of the drum, and the exhaust outlet formed in the front part of the drum. In such an arrangement, the hot air inlet and exhaust outlet are set along the rotation axis of the drum in a mutually facing state, so that a hot air stream fed into the drum at the inlet tends to be directly drawn off at the outlet. The hot air stream is retained in the drum for a relatively short length of time, failing to ensure sufficient contact between the hot air stream and the articles of clothing being dried. The hot air stream is not fully utilized, decreasing the drying efficiency. There has come into demand a combination unit including a drier located above a washing apparatus and it has been attempted to reduce the overall thickness of the drier by narrowing the axial length of the drum in order to meet this requirement. However, this attempt is accompanied with the drawbacks that the hot air inlet and exhaust outlet are drawn nearer each other, and the hot air stream tends to flow more directly through the drum from the inlet to the outlet.
The U.S. Pat. No. 2,940,179 discloses a drum type drier in which the backside of a drum is provided with the inlet and outlet for a hot air stream. The outlet is set at the center of the backside of the drum, and the outlet is radially spaced from the outlet.With the drum type drier of said United States patent, the hot air inlet and exhaust outlet are not arranged in a mutually facing position, thereby assuring a longer retention of the hot air stream in the drum than in the aforementioned drum type drier. With said patented drier, however, the hot air inlet and exhaust outlet are set adjacent to each other on the backside of the drum, unavoidably shortening the passage of the hot air stream and failing to ensure a sufficient retention time of the hot air stream.